Page 8 of Soulbound
"Concentrate," she growled to herself, flipping the covers off her bed, and slipping from its warm embrace. She needed to be thinking about the mirror, and preparing herself for the next step. Not dwelling on a man who absolutely could not have translocated through time itself.
Making her way to the cellars with the Ouroboros Mirror under her arm, she locked the enormous iron-bound door behind her, then went around the room of Lady Rathbourne's ritual space, lighting the candles there. Ianthe's workspace was immaculate.
An Ouroboros Mirror was a dangerous device. Cleo put it flat on Ianthe's altar, a scrap of black silk covering the glass. Then she knelt in front of it, gathering her night-robe about her.
London's doom was a storm gathering on the horizon. Drake de Wynter, the previous Prime of the Order—and her husband's father—had been forced to offer his body for the demon to use as a vessel. She needed to know what her vision meant.
And how to stop it.
Cleo dragged the black silk from the mirror's surface. Oval in shape, it seemed harmless enough, if one didn't look directly into the polished black obsidian sheen of the mirror. A pair of bronze snakes twined around each other, circling the edge of the mirror, and she couldn't tell where one snake began and the other finished... or perhaps there truly was only one. Ouroboros. Trepidation filled her, and she began to still her mind, keeping her gaze from the mirror's inky surface until she'd meditated long enough. Anyone who stared into a mirror like this without the ability to master themselves and their divination arts would find themselves trapped within it.
"You're the Cassandra," she told herself sternly.
You were, whispered something dark within her.
I still am. Her father might have stolen her Visions by stealing her blindfold, but Drake had insisted she still had the ability. Only doubt and lack of self-belief held her back from her gift of Foresight.
Her gaze dropped to the carved sigils around the mirror, as she quietly gathered her power. The center of her forehead burned, her Third Eye awakening, and Cleo picked up the knife she'd brought and pressed the sharp tip to her finger. "Hesharazadh."
A simple word of power to clear her mind, and command her Third Eye.
The world vanished into far too many shapes and edges as she opened her Sight. She could see the real world, as well as echoes of others. Feeding her blood to the mirror's runes, she began to chant lightly under her breath.
Black mist curled off the mirror. Taking a deep breath, Cleo rested both hands on the edges of the bronze frame, then leaned over it and looked down.
Her own face stared back, though her cheekbones were shockingly sharp, and there was a darker expression about her face. It looked like a version of her that might have existed if she'd been drawn to the Black Arts her father practiced. A silver Unicursal Hexagram dangled from her ear in the image, and she wore enough black lace to make a widow jealous. The last thing she wanted to see was herself. Or a version of herself that didn't exist. She shook her head, and black mist coalesced into something else. "Show me London's doom."
London sprang out of the shadows, stark and grimy. Little figures began to form. Snow on the ground. A bloody triangle in the pristine white—no, two of them, interlaced in another hexagram. A man stood in the center of it, feeding blood into the star as he cut a woman's throat. She couldn't see who the man was from above. Black hair meant it could be her husband, or perhaps his oldest brother. Or a stranger, though she suspected it was all connected.
"Draw back," she whispered to herself, and the image grew smaller, showing some of the detail around it.
A lush garden by the look of it. Bodies scattered here and there, as if there'd been some great bloody fight between opposing forces.
A hooded figure walked slowly across the snow toward the hexagram, the black velvet of their cloak dragging behind them and leaving a trail. Clouds began to boil above the garden. The air grew static, and there was a flicker in the center of the sky, almost like a seam. Hands lifted to lower the hood, black velvet gloves reaching to the person’s elbows, and she held her breath, waiting to see—
"White Queen," something whispered, and she heard the chittering sounds of something inhuman nearby.
Dread began to whisper down her spine. Cleo couldn't tear her gaze from the mirror, but she felt certain there was something in the room with her, something behind her. She'd missed the hooded figure's reveal. The scene focused on the seam in the sky now, and she was right. There was something straining behind that invisible scene, the sky bulging as if something fought to push its way through.
She'd never seen that before. Always her vision focused on Sebastian, and the darkening clouds above him.
Movement shifted at the edge of her vision. Cleo's heart began to pound and she cried out softly, trying to force her gaze away from the mirror.
"Black queen," whispered something else, behind her. "Two sides to a coin."
What did that mean? Cleo ground her teeth together, sweat dripping down her temples. She needed to control the mirror. Not the other way around. "Show me the black queen," she demanded.
The hooded figure came into view again.
"An uncertain heart with blood as black as ebony," the mirror whispered. "If she commits to the Black Arts, she will rise and London will fall. The Horde will ride through London streets, bringing blood and death to the world, and it will be your fault, White Queen."
A stab of pain went through her temples, and Cleo cried out, losing the image. Fine. The black queen must be strongly warded. Two sides to a coin. Did that mean the black queen was like her? A seer?
"Who is she?"
"Light or Dark? She hasn't decided yet. The demon has been courting her for years."
Maybe that was one way to find her nemesis? All she needed to do was go through the Order's book of registered sorcerers, and find any who were born with the same gift she had.
